Many business owners are naive when it comes to the new experience of creating a commercial website. The quality of business websites varies from the "Build-it-Yourself" version to enriched fully professional marketing tools. Unfortunately the price paid does not always reflect the quality or effectiveness of the finished product.

It's also an unfortunate fact that customers are often much more aware of the quality markers of e-business than are the business owners themselves, and it's commercial decisions like these which can be seriously damaging and take years of hard work and effort to repair.

So, whatever your decision about your commercial website, it will pay you to read and understand the following ...

First and foremost - designing and creating a website is NOT a technical issue. It's a behavioural and perceptual one!

"Building Your Brand On The Web - To convince consumers that their offerings are worth the prices they command, sellers of high-consideration products and services need Web sites that do two things: 1) communicate value in an emotionally engaging way, and 2) deliver value by offering useful, usable content and function."
Forrester Research - Customer Experience First Look; 19 Sept; 2007

"It is unfortunate, but true, that so many creative website designers don't have a clue about ... marketing and behavioural concerns."
Dr. Ralph F. Wilson; Web Marketing Today; 02 May 2006

"Speed is a key to success, and simplicity is an enabler. Eighteen months ago Forrester noted the emergence of a push for simplicity in application development."
J. Hammond, Senior Analyst, Forrester Research; "Application Development and program Management First Look"; August 14; 2007.

"An EFFECTIVE commercial website is about understanding and recognising your Customer's real wants and real needs, and how those wants and needs are being recognised, respected, and met - when they deal with you! "It's the little, customer-focused changes that gradually improve conversion rates."
Dr. Ralph F. Wilson; Web Marketing Today; 24-May-2006

"Consumers are spending more time online these days, seeking out experiences that are relevant, engaging, and entertaining. But many sites struggle to embrace the growing diversity of consumers' wants and needs. Why? Because today's Web organizations often backburner desirability to focus on more obvious, pressing problems."
H. Manning; "It's Time To Humanize The Web"; Forrester Customer First Look; 16 August, 2007

The use and creation of a website is a business decision. As Thomas L. Friedman puts it in his latest book, 'The World is Flat'; "In this competitive new world, how will leaders rise above the fray this year and differentiate their wares? By creating compelling, valuable, usable customer experiences!"
Forrester Research; Jan. 2006

"To make sites as usable as they are pretty, companies need to benchmark site support for critical user goals, ... break ties between image-oriented and fashionable design in favour of what real users need."
Web Sites Must Temper Creativity With Usability. Manning, Nate & Johnson; December, 2005

"With more access to information, more sensitivity to price, and less sensitivity to advertising, customers are getting harder to win and keep. Organizations try to woo these empowered consumers with mediocre customer experiences — but it won't work. Firms need to dramatically raise the bar on the customer experience they provide."
January 2, 2007; Experience-Based Differentiation; How To Build Loyalty With Every Interaction,: by Bruce D. Temkin with Harley Manning, Peter Hult

"Our research uncovered five levels of voice of the customer activities: relationship tracking, interaction monitoring, continuous listening, project infusion, and periodic immersion. Companies should create formalized programs that address these different types of insight."
December 1, 2006; Voice Of The Customer: Five Levels Of Insight. by Bruce D. Temkin with Peter Hult

Website Design and On-line Sales - Forrester Research - 14 May 2007.
© Forrester Research

"Lessons Learned From 1,001 Web Site Reviews" Guess what! Findings are all about people, customers, and their needs. Not a mention about technology! Elements of good website design are: * Overall coherent design * Targeted personas * Awareness of target culture, customer needs, and inherent communication skills.

"Retailers wax philosophic about loyalty too -- what does retail loyalty mean, anyway? So, how can retailers build loyal consumers? Not through loyalty points, or loyalty programs, but through customer experiences that link to (your) brand proposition. After all, the weird aunt who hands out candy is popular for a moment, but playing with cousins lasts all day long."
Retail First Look; Forrester Research 05 July 2006

"On-Line Shopping Carts were once considered to be the ultimate in on-line business. With a business doing nothing but creating a "honey-pot" for customers who would find their site and buy on-line. These expectations are now virtually abandoned as a serious business-to-customer commercial use of the web, with conversion rates as low as 2.4 - 3.2%.
Forrester Research; "the State of Shopping On-Line" ; June, 2006

Schadler et al express it well. "Online gains a new context. While e-Commerce sales continue to grow, the importance of being online is evolving - becoming less focused on being a sales channel, and more on being a portal for consumers to access the retailer's branded experience."
Sell Digital Experiences, Not Products - Solution Boutiques Will Help Consumers Buy Digital Experiences. Schadler; Charron & McHarg. Forrester Research 11 Feb, 2006

"Enterprise IT faces a paradox. Layer upon layer of systems have been built to lend efficiency and predictability to the workplace, but today's business processes need to support rich human interaction in addition to automating structured, predictable work. Most enterprises need true integration of ad hoc and structured processes across functions and organizations that enable employees, partners, and customers to receive quality information at the right time, via the right channel, and in the right context.

Therein lies the paradox: The same IT investments that aimed for efficient, factory-like automation of the business, now jeopardize the future -- because the results of those investments are anything but adaptive or rich in the human element."
Connie Moore: Vice President, Research Director. Forrester Research. "Designed for People - Built for Change"; Forrester First Look; 09 August, 2007

"Companies are realising that the web is something that is demanding their attention. Their focus is now on value rather than cost, and this is demonstrated by a 17% increase in web analysis spending in the Q4 quarter of 2005"
Forrester Research: "Peer Research Panel Survey" and "Predicting the ROI of Web Redesign"; 19 April, 2006

"Social computing is transforming the internet, the economy, and society. .... it will reshape our society and your company."
Forrester Research: "Social Computing Has Universal Consequences"; Charron et al; March 14, 2006

"There is tremendous excitement and uncertainty surrounding the topic of Social Computing and the role that it plays in business. eCommerce marketers who recognize the tremendous value of user-generated content stand to reap tremendous rewards."
January 31, 2007; Forrester's first Look at Retail Trends

"Whittmanhart and Burke found that online branding drives purchase intent — as long as sites meet basic usability standards".
December 7, 2006; Online Branding Increases Purchase Intent: A New Study Sheds Light On How Brand And Usability Interrelate. by Harley Manning with Adele Sage, Caroline L. Carney

"2007 State Of Retailing Online"
The first graph below shows a significant predicted increase in US on-line RETAIL sales during 2007 as US consumers become more trusting of the web. We note that these predictions are rather fragile due to the dependency of BOTH consumer and merchant security when exposed to on-line payments, delivery, and guarantees.

The second graph shows a fairly consistent relationship between total retail sales (with a slight increase in on-line activity) throughout the purchasing spectrum from 2006 though to 2012 - ie on-line verses off-line.

"Although most consumers look for ease-of-use in their favourite sites, they diverge when it comes to their preference for other elements of a site experience. To uncover these differences, we examined survey responses of both males and females across five generations: Gen Yers, Gen Xers, Younger Boomers, Older Boomers, and Seniors. Some of our findings: women care the most about ease-of-use; women and young consumers enjoy fun sites the most; and men care more about content than women. Given the differences in what consumers want to see, firms should tailor their site experiences to the specific preferences of their target audiences."
May 14, 2007: What Women And Men Want — Online: Preferences Of Female And Male Consumers Across Generations. by Bruce D. Temkin with Ross Popoff-Walker, Steven Geller

© Marketing Sherpa 2006

The following graphs show the vital need to be aware of user behaviour and the inherent danger of the old adage of "a picture tells a thousand words" when applied to the internet! The thermal eye-track images clearly indicate the need for effective headlines and the total wastage of valuable customer connection and communication potential from using "pretty" but low-meaning and slow-loading images - especially in the critical "Header" sections of the website!

If you are going to use images they MUST be both relevant and message-full!

Thermal Eye Tracking Sample 1 © Ecommerce Benchmark Guide 2006 Thermal Eye Tracking Sample 2 © Ecommerce Benchmark Guide 2006 Dr. Ralph F. Wilson; Web Marketing Today; 24-May-2006

Have you ever been frustrated having to horizontal-scroll your screen to see the complete page, and printed a page to find the right-hand side of the text has not printed?

Here's why!

It's called not designing a site to fit the huge range of variable screen sizes now available! Below is just a small example - and this already excludes screens of almost 4,000 pixels resolution!

Building an effective commercial web presence requires awareness well beyond the creation of a viewable page on the internet. Creating pretty pictures, and many other actions taken by Website Designers and Graphic Artists can be totally adverse to commercial success. Understanding the behaviour of your customers and they way they use the tools you provide are the keys!

Simply Efficient website design is the result of years of discipline as a professional scientist and psychologist, combined with real-life experience in personal connection and counselling, business management and development, internet technology, and computer programming.

Our focus is using experience-based differentiation in building sites for your customers! When you Keep In Touch™ with your Customers using your Simply Efficient website, you're using state-of-the-art blending of behaviour and technology to create win-win outcomes and personal experiences for your Customers - and for you ...

We maximise the Customer impact of this new medium as well as the content of intelligent function and design - and minimise the content of "luck"!

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